


here you come again

by gay_writes_with_mac



Series: Denara [5]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Anxiety, Denise is anxious, Drinking, F/F, Gen, I deserve either no rights or all of them, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Tara Chambler Is A Bottom: Change My Mind, Tara can help with that, Vaginal Fingering, Verse!Denise, inspired by dolly parton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:34:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25430194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gay_writes_with_mac/pseuds/gay_writes_with_mac
Summary: here you come againjust when i've begun to get myself togetheryou waltz right in the doorjust like you've done beforeand wrap my heart 'round your little fingerThey can't seem to stop meeting like this. A crowded bar, a drink that Denise had to get her brother to order for her, and the strangest girl she's ever known, with a funny-looking cocktail and a tattoo of a little ghost on her arm. It's the same every time. Tara is a comforting familiarity that still knocks Denise off her feet, every single time.
Relationships: Denise Cloyd & Dennis Cloyd, Tara Chambler/Denise Cloyd
Series: Denara [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782724
Kudos: 3





	here you come again

Her head is spinning even before she touches her first drink. Denise sits on a barstool and compulsively eats salty peanuts and sips on something that her brother ordered for her, something way too strong with a bite that burns her throat with every swallow. She doesn’t put it down anyway.

Dennis is getting sick of her. Who wouldn’t be getting sick of her by now? She definitely would, if she was someone like Dennis and she’d gone out with someone like her. They’ve been here for almost an hour, and Denise has yet to finish one drink, much less unstick herself from this stool. She doesn’t want to leave it. It’s her favorite, the one she always claims on the few nights her brother actually manages to convince her to go out with him, the one closest to the back corner where the lights aren’t so flashy and the music is just a little quieter and it’s not quite as much to take in as it is out there. It’s her oasis, her watering hole, her sanctuary. She’s practically tethered herself to it, with one end of the rope bound around the stool and the other around her amygdala.

_ Amygdala: a roughly almond-shaped mass of gray matter inside each cerebral hemisphere, involved with the experiencing of emotions. The amygdala has a central role in anxiety responses to stressful and arousing situations. _

“Denise.” Dennis is trying not to snap. He’s using that soft, slightly strained voice he always reverts to when he’s trying not to snap. “It doesn’t count as going out if you don’t  _ move.  _ Come on. Play worst-case scenario.”

“Worst-case scenario” is a game they invented as teenagers and never stopped playing, mostly because Dennis said they’d stop playing when Denise’s anxiety calmed down and if anything, it’s only skyrocketed since then. The rules are simple enough - he tells her to play, and Denise has to think of the absolute worst thing that could happen, and then he always tries to convince her it wouldn’t be that bad. And maybe for Dennis it wouldn’t be.

“Worst-case scenario,” she says shakily, drumming her rosy pink nails against the glossy wood of the bar. She did the paint herself, and she’s just now noticing a little speck where she went over her nail and onto the skin.  _ Shit.  _ “I go out there and look like a big idiot and everyone laughs at me.”

“And?” Dennis barely has to prompt her anymore, stirring his own drink absently, his eyes already trailing away to a pretty blonde at a table on the other side of the room, surrounded by a squad of beautiful, giggling girls who all look well-adjusted and comfortable and like they know how to do things like this. Nothing like Denise.

“And they all think I’m stupid and laugh at me and I look like the biggest moron on the planet.”

“So?”

“So  _ that, _ ” Denise insists, her cheeks flushing a warm, nervous pink to match her sloppy nail polish. “That’d be  _ awful. _ ”

“You know anyone here?”

“...no…”

She finally finishes her drink, and Dennis orders her a second without stopping to ask if she wants one. “You ever even  _ seen  _ most of these people?”

“...no…”

“So why are you acting like you need a job reference from these guys?” Dennis waves a hand around the room, still not looking away from the back of the pretty blonde’s jeans. “Their opinion of you literally does not matter.”

“It matters to me,” Denise says quietly, finally setting her drink down and pushing it away slightly. It still burns, and her head is starting to feel more than a little foggy, an unpleasant cloudy feeling that blurs her thoughts and makes her palms sweat. That’s not saying much, though; everything makes her palms sweat. She hasn’t had nearly enough to justify that under normal circumstances, but today she didn’t have lunch because her boss at the research lab where she does work-study forgot to give her her lunch break today, and she was really going to ask, but then her heart started beating too fast and her palms started sweating and she decided maybe she wasn’t hungry after all. So her stomach is empty and growling and she’s three-quarters of the way through a second round something too strong for her, her head is whirling slowly and lazily like a broken merry-go-round, and she’s far too nervous to even think about standing up. “Go,” she continues, nodding her head slightly in the direction of Dennis’s hot blonde. “You don’t have to sit here all night.”

“I’m fine-” Dennis starts to protest, but he’s already drifting away. Denise swats his shoulder to encourage it. Just because she’s tethered herself to a false emblem of security doesn’t mean he needs to get tied down either. He shouldn’t. The girl on the other side of the room is pretty, and Dennis is charming when he wants to be, and she doesn’t want to stand in the way of either of them having a good night. It’s bad enough that she’s already ruined her own. 

“If you don’t want her, I’ll take her,” she teases, managing a faint smile, and that’s enough to reassure her brother and he goes, disappearing into the crowd in the general direction of the pretty blonde and her group of friends.

Denise sighs, picking at a bit of papery brown skin on another peanut. She’s lonely, painfully so, and watching the back of Dennis’s head as he gets lucky with the ladies like he does almost every night doesn’t help. She’s about to try to scrape up the courage to ask the bartender for a water and maybe some fries - she’s  _ really _ hungry, and dehydrated as well - when the sight of one familiar face in the crowd snatches the breath right out of her lungs. 

She didn’t know she was coming. But of course she was coming. That’s one thing that can be said for sure about Tara, and there’s not a lot of them - she thrives on the night scene.

_ Tara Chambler, twenty-two years old. Pre-law student at the University of Georgia, where Denise goes too as a pre-med student. _

And that’s all she knows about her. All she knows for sure. Tara’s birthday is in November but she refuses to tell Denise the exact day. Tara is a pre-law student but sometimes she says criminal justice and sometimes she says environmental and sometimes she says civil rights and sometimes she says she’s dropping out and writing all day instead and becoming a famous author. Denise latches her tether onto anything and everything, constantly trying to find somewhere to land. But Tara floats around free, untethered and unsecured, drifting about on the wind like a puff blown from a dandelion. Denise can’t imagine living life the way Tara does, with a smile on her face and tattoos on her wrists and absolutely no idea of what she’s doing tomorrow, much less in five years. But Tara walks - no, Tara doesn’t walk, Tara  _ saunters _ , everywhere she goes, regardless of whether or not she’s late - with more confidence than Denise could ever imagine mustering.

And she’s here tonight, looking better than a body has a right to. There’s a bright pink cocktail in her hand that she sips from every few moments, her glossy red lips puckering in a perfect pout around a striped red-and-white straw to protect her lipstick. Her dark hair spills down her shoulders, always loose, never tied back, the choppy ends brushing her upper ribs. Tara cuts her hair herself. Denise got to watch her once, hovering in the doorway of Tara’s bathroom with one of her red-and-black checkered flannels pulled over her shoulders to cover at least part of her. Tara washed her hair and dried it just a bit and then when it was still damp, leaned over the sink and chopped off the ends with a pair of purple safety scissors. She does the ends sloppy on purpose.

She’s gone simple tonight, just a plain white top that shows a sliver of her pale, toned stomach just above the waistline of her leopard-print skirt. Her legs - tanned and muscular and so, so long - are on full display, and God, if it isn’t a display Denise is happy to get a front row seat too. Her arms are out too, just as well-muscled and tanned. That’s another thing she knows about Tara; she ran track in high school and won a whole array of medals and trophies. They’re on display in her apartment. Tara doesn’t run anymore, but Denise has seen photos of her in action, and she does still frequent the gym to preserve the toned muscles developed after hours baking in the heat on the track after school. Her tattoos are out as well - Tara gets tattoos like most people get ice creams. Whenever the whim strikes her, she goes for another one. Denise doesn’t know what half of them mean. There’s blue Roman numerals that she never holds still long enough to let her translate, and a whole series of little sketches and shapes on her forearms. One is a little ghost. That’s Denise’s favorite. 

Tara sees her then, waving her over with just the crook of her finger. It looks callous, and dismissive - even Denise thought that, at first - but she knows what’s coming in just a moment. And then she gets it; that  _ smile.  _ Tara’s real smile is a beautiful thing. She goes around with a wispy little half-smile on her face, showing just a hint of her teeth, but then she sees Denise and she gets the real thing. The real thing is a true, actual grin, showing off her pearly whites - Tara has naturally straight teeth, she’s never had braces, just another one of those random little things Tara’s told her over damp pillowcases and rumpled sheets - and she’s never seen it before with anyone else. Just Denise. Tara makes a smile a privilege.

She drifts away from her stool without much argument, leaving her glass behind. She won’t be coming back to it. Tara makes it easy to leave things behind, if only for a short time. Seeing her makes Denise feel like she can walk on air.

Tara laces their fingers, taking another sip of her vibrant pink cocktail. Her nails are painted with clear glitter polish, little flecks of gold catching the dim light and flashing briefly like twinkling stars on her fingertips. “I didn’t know you were coming,” she says lightly, looking at Denise over the rim of the glass with a sparkle in her deep brown eyes - the gold flecks in the irises match her nails - that makes her stomach drop in the most exhilarating way. “You look beautiful. I love what you’ve done with your hair.”

She’s like that. Always showering compliments. That’s something that’s not unique to Denise at all, but her cheeks flush red anyway, her palms threatening to make themselves slick with nervous sweat. The hair is nothing, really; she wound it in large, loose bunches around a straightening iron and teased the resulting curls into loose waves that cascade down over her shoulders, hiding the dark streak from where she tried to box dye her golden blonde hair and failed miserably a few months ago. “I didn’t know I was coming either,” she says quietly, and her mouth is suddenly very dry. “My brother’s idea. I’m...I’m glad I came though. Because you’re here.”

“Flirt,” Tara half-chides, as if she’s not twice the flirt Denise is, and three times as shameless. “I come all the time. Always looking for you.”

Those four words are almost enough to make Denise want to start going out every night. Anything to see Tara in the crowd and exchange that glance and get the beckoning finger in her direction. But she’s not quite that brave, and so she just nods, swallowing hard around the sudden lump in her throat. “No one else worth looking for?”

She hopes the answer will be no, even though that’s not fair at all. She and Tara are a far cry from anything resembling  _ exclusive,  _ or  _ dating,  _ or even so much as  _ relationship. _ But she still looks for Tara every time Dennis drags her out, and every time he pushes her to ask for a number or download whatever dating app he’s found his latest fling on, suddenly she sees Tara’s face and that’s all the reason she needs to refuse.

Tara suddenly weaves a hand through her loose blonde curls and pulls Denise down to her level, kissing her with the passion that only Tara puts into each and every kiss. She tastes like liquor and bubblegum. Denise’s hands find her hips and squeeze lightly, her pink-tipped nails digging in gently. Tara slips her tongue into her mouth slowly, reaching back behind her to set her cocktail down on the closest table, stumbling back slightly as she snakes her arm around Denise’s waist. She’s always been the type to surprise kiss, to suddenly grab Denise and steal her breath away all over again, pulling her into a passionate embrace like this one without a care in the world if anyone is watching. Denise is slowly learning not to care either, to relax and just enjoy the thoughtfulness that Tara puts into her kisses, and she’s receiving plenty of lessons.

Tara finally breaks away, gasping slightly, her lips reddened and slightly swollen from the intensity of the kiss. But she doesn’t even look fazed, despite the cherry red lipstick smeared all around her mouth and most likely on Denise’s as well, picking up her drink to have another sip. “No one like you.”

Tara knows how to make her heart skip a beat with just a look and a few well-chosen words, and she’s giving her the  _ look  _ now, an unrestrained stare of desire as she looks Denise up and down, her long eyelashes blinking innocently as her beautiful doe eyes linger over her chest. Tara isn’t just admiring the view, she’s mentally undressing Denise right before her very eyes. Tara is the only one to ever look at her with such open hunger, craving every inch of her before she’s so much as touched her.

Tara finishes her cocktail, setting the glass down with a soft  _ clink  _ on the bar, her eyes not wavering for a moment from her fixated glance on Denise. “Take me home?”

She still makes it sound like a question. Like it’s not as if she’s quite literally got her wrapped around her little finger and with one little motion, and she’d have Denise tripping over herself in her rush to take Tara home. But no. Tara has never, not once, not since the first time their eyes ever met in this crowded bar on a Friday night, taken Denise for granted. 

Tara slips her hand into the back pocket of Denise’s jeans as they leave together. It’s just one more of her little gestures that shakes up her whole world all over again.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first time they did this Denise was terrified. Tara was without a doubt the prettiest girl she’d ever seen, much less  _ touched,  _ and when she played a round of “worst-case scenario” in her head as her mouth slipped against hers, pulses racing wildly, the answer was that she would prove herself to be terrible in bed and Tara would never so much as sneeze in her direction again.

But fucking Tara is one of the easiest things in the world, and the least frightening too. Because Tara simply doesn’t stand for not being properly taken care of. She tells Denise exactly what to do and where to touch and how to please her. She takes the  _ mystery  _ out of it all, the constant threat of proving herself inadequate - particularly against the rows of girls who’d happily take her place as the one Tara looks for.

The moment they get in the door of Denise’s small apartment - it’s Denise’s turn to offer up her bed for the evening - they’re a messy tangle of bodies, tugging at buttons and zippers with hands made clumsy by alcohol and arousal. Tara’s teeth clash against hers as her hands curl around the hem of her shirt, pulling it up and over her head and mussing the hair she complimented back at the bar. Tara doesn’t complain, though, tossing the shirt off into some shadowed corner of the room before cupping Denise’s face in her warm, calloused hands, biting down on her lower lip with just enough pressure to tease a low, muffled moan out of her. Denise flushes at once, embarrassed, but there’s no point in trying to keep quiet. If Tara wants to hear her, she’ll hear her, and Denise can’t think of a single way in the world to silence her if that’s not what she’s after. 

Her hands fumble with Tara’s cotton top, but she finally gets it up and over her head, revealing the lacy white bra she likes, almost laughably virginal in the dim light from her bedside reading lamp. Denise lets her hands wander over it for a long moment, brushing her knuckles over one cup of the bra. Tara moans into her mouth at once, a whining, needy sound that she doesn’t bother trying to muffle. Tara never does. She never tries to stay quiet. 

Denise gropes behind her and unhooks her bra clasp, letting it fall away to leave Tara before her without a trace of shyness. Tara falls back onto her bed - crisply made white sheets and a soft blue blanket, perfectly straightened pillows that Tara’s head knocks askew - and pulls Denise down after her. Her pale cheeks are flushed bright pink, and she entangles her long, slender fingers into Denise’s hair and  _ pulls,  _ not enough to hurt, but enough of a tug to make her hiss slightly in surprise, her head guided by Tara’s desperate fingers down to her tits.

Tara smells like green apple body wash. Her skin is soft and smooth and bruises easily under Denise’s mouth, her lips leaving a trail of soft, flowering pink marks behind. “Touch me,” Tara manages through breathless gasps, shuddering with every kiss Denise places on her body, two bright pink spots still flushing furiously on her cheeks. “Please.”

Her fingers, long and slender, evenly trimmed nails, slowly trail up the inside of Tara’s thigh. Her lips bruise their way over her tits, scraping softly over a hardened nipple. Tara is wet already; she’s anticipating it, desperate for her touch, chest heaving and skin flushed, and her plain cotton underwear are damp to the touch as Denise works them down. She probes slowly - not that she needs to, she knows exactly where to find Tara’s clit, but she only gets wetter the longer Denise teases, the tip of her finger skating in circles around the small bud. “ _ Please, _ ” Tara begs - she’s never been ashamed to beg - and the hoarse, choked plea tells Denise that it’s time to indulge her.

Tara always gets what she wants. 

Denise plunges two fingers into her up to the second knuckle, her thumb rubbing over her clit. Tara’s hips buck up against her, a soft gasp leaping from her throat, and Denise carefully throws an arm over her waist to hold her down. She knows what Tara can take and what she can’t, what she likes and what hurts her, just where to touch her to draw out her little whines and moans of pleasure.

She knows Tara’s close when she starts gasping, a string of high-voiced pleas for her to  _ not stop  _ echoing around the small bedroom. Denise’s thumb is still grinding over her clit, and she feels Tara clench around her, hears the choked, strangled moan that signals her orgasm.

She lets her ride it out, her mouth brushing idly over her tits as Tara quivers under her, her skin shining with a damp sheen of sweat. She recovers fast, though - it never takes her long - and she grabs Denise by her hair, close to her scalp, and tugs her back up to her lips for a kiss that tastes like the sweet liquor on her lips, a messy, sloppy clash of teeth that sends a shudder down Denise’s spine. 

Tara pulls back after a moment, her eyes dark with something like mischief. “Sit on the edge of the bed,” she says, voice raspy, and Denise is powerless to do anything but. She’s still in her navy blue jeans, she realizes - Tara gave up on undressing her before and only the top button’s been undone - but she slides to the very edge anyway, her breath quickening as Tara slinks off the edge as well, kneeling in front of her between her spread legs. 

She rolls her hips up to let Tara pull her jeans down. She’s not wearing anything special underneath - plain grey underwear and an old bra that definitely doesn’t match - but Tara pays it no mind, her warm, callused hand splaying out over Denise’s stomach. Her breath is hot on her inner thigh, her amber brown eyes locked onto Denise’s, and the grey cotton clings with dampness to her skin as Tara tugs them down to her ankles and then all the way off, throwing them over her shoulder with a casualness and a little smirk that makes Denise gasp through clenched teeth. She’s already aching, needing Tara more than she’s ever needed anything.

And when Tara lowers her head and she feels the first magical stroke of her tongue, she remembers why she does this. Why she drinks too much and throws her judgement to the wind and takes Tara - functionally, she might as well be a stranger, because Denise knows nothing important about her, only little things - into her house and her bed. It’s because of this.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Denise wakes up, it’s to cool sheets tangled around her bare legs, her half-buttoned top still draped loosely over her shoulders, a bottle of over-the-counter painkillers and a chocolate granola bar left on the nightstand by her side, and an empty expanse of rumpled white sheets by her side, the pillow only smelling so very faintly of sweet liquor. 

Tara never stays to see her wake up.

**Author's Note:**

> There might be a part two to this coming. Not sure yet.


End file.
